I try to give my ex-cop-char some new knowledge skills. He's a face and has all combat and social skills he needs imo, so i decided to give him some more topics to talk about. He already has (bought at chargen) physics (ballistic), forensic, swat-tactics, police operations and some hobby-related skills. So i want some more to express his background as an ex-cop who got fired because of being corrupt. You know, the typical broken man who wasn't able to resist taking the bribe offered by mafia and the like. Now he switched over and became a professional criminal.

Some ideas:

Mafia-controlled Hangouts
Seattle (or whatever town) Safehouses
Mafia Politics
Gang Identification
Lone Star (or whatever police corp) Internal Politics
Italian Food (I know, I know, cliche, but fits a Mafia-involved character )
Italian (Laungaue Skill)

Ofcourse, if the organized criminal organization he's involved with isn't the Mob, replace the skills with appropriate ones (i.e. Russian, Russian Food and Vodka for the Vori )

Cooking.

I strongly recommend cooking.

Motorsports.
Soccer Trivia
(If he's anything like the typical Italian male, he not only thinks he drives like Michael Schumacher, and spends most of Sunday watching Formula 1, the MotoGP, and the football...adapt the sports obsession as you please to fit national obsessions and get rid of anachronism...)

Fast Cars.
(It's a guy thing...)

Cop Anecdotes
(All those stories about horrible things that happened to colleagues, the day the Chief picked up a Mantid Spirit, that kind of thing)

Bribery
(Just what do all those "greasing the wheels" services cost?)

Law Enforcement Background (Agency)
Law (Criminal, Local)
Forensics (Crime Scene)
Seattle Metroplex (Patrol Beat)
Current Events (Crime Reports)
Criminology
Politics (Local)
Psychology
Sociology
Organized Crime (Rackets)
Organized Crime (Group)
Gang Identification (Local)

Cheers

QM

Prostitution Rings
Fences
N'er-do-Wells
Donut and Soykaf Shops
Sarge's Locker
"Accidental" Suspect Damaging
Rotten Kids

Don't forget Corrupt Cops. He would certainly know who else was on the take.

How something that reflects whatever money pit that convinced him he needed to be on the take? Like:

Marriage(Divorcing) - After three full cycles of marriage and divorce you'd think he knew a good deal about this. But then again he shouldn't have known to quit after two.

Golddiggers(Prenutual Agreements) - All the information he could have used 20 years ago. Doh!

Sailing - The hobby that is best explained as similar to standing in a cold shower, with your clothes on, ripping up 100 bills.

Warhammer 40K (135th edition) - He knows exactly which units from 134th edition can be used in 135th edition. None.


EDIT: And in the spirit of the other, slightly more useful posts: Law(Evidence Manufactering)

Also, cops aren't CSI. Forensics is a specialized field in law enforcement, and plays very little in the average detective's day to day casework.
They need some skill in it, to make sense of the more escoteric portions of the coronor's report and the forensics report, they do not however need to know how to collect the data, nor how to process it.
High sociology (professional level at the least), psychology, maybe some sort of "profiling" skill, etc.
Your average cop, from meter maid to cheif of police often sees the very worst of people day in, day out. They see many of the most negative stereotypes confirmed on a monthly if not weekly or even daily basis. For some good background reading on cops on the take, read Rising Sun, I think.
It had a very good take on how and why a cop starts to get on the take. For many, it's not so much about the money, it's the utter lack of support they get from the people they try to protect. Most cops, lose all their non-cop friends when they join the force. They usually end up in divorce because they shut down emotionally, unable to express the anger with the system to their spouses. They lay their life on the line on a daily basis only to be spat on by the folks that they serve. They aren't paid for shit, one of the worst pay scales in civil service given the risk inherently involved. In the end, being on the take is often a result of it's either this or I fail to fulfill one of the primary duties of an officer, at the end of my shift, go home; ie a 2 nuyen retirement package.
Compound that with the game description of Lone Star and Knight Errant as privitized companies. Thankless job + heartless corporate management that only is concerned about the bottom line it is no longer a risk of taking bribes, it's almost an inevitability that you'll take them.

Though, the character needs to take a police record flaw of some kind. Cops rarely forget, though in the brave new world of the 2060's, it's likely they'll simply have nothing to do with him, unless his bribe taking cost a cop his life, then he's going to be harrassed to the point that if a cop's wife gives birth to an orc, he'll be brought in for questioning.

Illegal choke-holds
Obscure, minor laws (to find something to hold someone for)
Pressure points
Idle threats
Excuses to search vehicles

First of all, thanks a lot for all the ideas so far.

I tried to write down the background. Please keep in mind that i don't know much about the police forces in the usa today - and most of the stuff i know is from movies and series like "the shield". But i think that the cops today and the ones 2060 act very similar.

The character was a cp in Miami, working for Atlantic Security (they're the one corp with the police contract there). He was in it for lets say 15 years (he is an older human, 39) and left three years ago.

He was working at the drug department. So he was a good target for the mafia: they gave him infos about incoming drug tranports by other syndicates which he and his guys could arrest. The mafia bribed him and his partner with money and nights at mafia-controlled brothels. No addiction. Guess when working for the drug department you're a detective, right? He wasn't interested in climbing up higher, he was satisfied with the life he had.

Do you know "the shield"? That's a tv-series about more or less criminal cops who are doing their own business and robbing criminals. The character did the same and was neither white nor black, more a deep gray.

I chose physics and forensic 'cuase it is surely helpful to have some skill in it. Both are at 3, so not really high, but to give him a small insight in it.
Swat-tactics cause i had no other idea. The latter wasn't used since chargen so can be subject to change.

He quit the work for AtSec when internal affairs started investigating his last years, the corrput ones. . At the same time a mission failed and his partner (whom he trusted like noone else, knowing him for 10 years and who was as corrupt as he was), was killed by a mage with a fireball. That gave him enough and he dropped being a cop.

"Training Day" is a good picture to grab. Not sooo way down and broken like Denzel was in that movie, but with the same attitude.

Beating up and robbing dealers? No problem, they're the scum who sells poison to our kids.

Yeah, it's surprising to see how many older cops are okay with that.
My dad had a great story of making some doper flush his stash down the toilet. Mind you he had spent his entire paycheck on the stuff, was several kilos, he wasn't planning on distributing, just was going to smoke, a lot. Problem is, with that much dope, there's tons more paperwork to file. so, rather than take him in on what would amount to really trumped up misdemeanor, the guy had to flush close to 80 pounds of grass. He was crying, but it was better than a giddy cell mate named Bunny for the next few years.

If I have learned on thing from movies, it is that cops always have good one liners.

So you need the skill, snazzy one liners.

I mean, really snazzy one liners will save the day, as they will give clues to your friends about how do things they have never done before.....

Don't forget the pastel shirts and the loafers.

Skils:

Investigation
Gambling
Gambling (locations)
BTL House locations
Bribery Etiquette

Metro-Dade PD has a Narcotics Bureau, if you just want to incorporate it into AtSec.

I don't trust PCs to get any "Law" knowledge skill. But maybe it's because someone straight out of law school should have a 5 or 6 in some sort of nebulous UCAS/whatever Law skill--assuming you can actually break it down like that. With cops, however, aside from the very vague "Police Procedures" KS (which I always treated as incorporating at 3+ various criminal procedures and evidentiary doctrines they have to follow) it would either be a specific KS (e.g., South Florida Criminal Law) or specialization of effectively South Florida Law (Criminal) 1(3) (tweaking the whole, "specializations can't be more than 2x base skill" rule). On the other hand, there's a reason why even search warrants usually get a cursory once-over by a PD lawyer, ADA, or AUSA (for feds).

It seems to me its to late to give him cop skills.

At char gen I would have given him skills relating to law and police procedures but not he is ourt of the police

There are 2 types of skills you learn. Those you learn for fun (you say he has hobbies already) and those you learn because you think you will need them. If your runs art king you deep into corporate politics then buy a subscription to corporate brownnosers weakly and find out who I screwing who literally and figuratively in the corporate world.

If you are constantly being blasted by mages and paranormal animals then buy a copy of “magical security for dummies (counter security edition)” and learn how to tell the difference between a big dog and a hell hound as well as why ducking behind a bar wont save you if the mage uses fireballs.

If your always dealing with street gangs walk around eth barons and take notes on who is beating up who, what there wearing and how little provocation is needed befog they beet up you and gain the gang identification skill.

If he is still dealing with the cops then loan star politics would be useful but generally once you stop working a particular job that job has very little influence over what you learn.

If your still involved with the mafia (check your contact list) then organised crime would work well

Although I would change swat tactics to police procedures swat tactics really would come under SmUT in my mind.

Edward

A good one would be social work/social services. Cops have to do a lot of that stuff IRL.

I also totally forgot the skill Magic Background at somehting low like a 1-3. Cops would get training on emergency scenarios on how to deal with a spirits or a mage and what to or not to do or how to identify spellcasting and it's effects.

Police procedures doesn’t cover everything they do.

It covered there paperwork and regulations and slandered responses.

They still need to have magical background to know the difference between a fireball and a mana ball.

Police procedures will tell them the phone number of the magical threat repose division.

Edward.

Good point.

Also, as a vice cop, he won't need Chemistry. That's a little too esoteric for a cop. He needs to know how to ID contraband substances on sight, or at least what appears to be contraband.
Also, Stealth (Awareness) is a great combo for any cop. You don't need to know how to sneak necessarily, but you sure as shit need to spot someone when they are sneaking, hiding, smuggling something, etc.
Also, avoid the TV/Movie cop blunder of dipping a finger and tasting anything. No cop that expects to retire will do that (words of my father, a former cop).

It's like this. The Magic Background let's you spot the mage poser from the real deal, simply by the fact that no wiz-kid worth a drek would by his summoning materials from acme.

"Excuses to search vehicles" is hysterical.

Just wanted to give the props.

To be honest that is a specialisation of local law. It also covers excuses to make arrests, search a person, there vehicle, residence, work place, storage spaces and the person, there vehicle, residence, work place and storage spaces of there known and expected associates.

If you have that specialisation you also should have police procedures (circumvention). This skill covers how to misplace critical or valuable evidence or prevent the evidence from ever being entered onto any police system. It is also a complementary skill to tests made to hide money related to the activities of a corrupt police officer.

Edward

Just realised another use of Stealth, planting evidence on a perp as it covers pickpocketing

Ah, if you don't think it's funny, that's your perogative. I think it's amusing that a cop would be so nasty that he devotes a large portion of his time to honing such a nasty little skill, instead of "police procedure" or "local law."

Also, how do you test for this?

GM: Alright, bad cop, you've pulled him over, now roll for excuses. . .
Bad Cop: Two successes.
GM: You can choose between "broken taillight" or "smell of alcohol."
Bad Cop: I'll go with "broken taillight."
GM: Alright, suspicious motorist, you can make a test with car b/r or local law.
Suspicious Motorist: Well, I don't have either, but I'll default off of car b/r.
GM: Roll it.
Suspicious Motorist: Three successes.
GM: Your taillight isn't broken.
Suspicious Motorist: Alright! Score! "Officer, my taillight isn't broken."
GM: He's got you there, bad cop.
Bad Cop: I cite Some Guy vs. Cop who smashed my taillight with his nightstick. *crash*

I guess it's because I know too many people to whom that or things similar to that have happened to find it amusing. My favorite was the time two guys were pulled over less than 5 blocks from one's home and detained for an hour and a half, handcuffed, and coerced (my words) to consenting to a search of the car because the driver "failed to signal when pulling out of a parking lot" (which is what the citation they got was for) when it was really a case of two people not being in the right neighborhood (so, clearly, they must be involved with drugs, since that is what constituted the majority of the exchange between them and the cops).

I've tried making PCs like this guy before. I can accept a great deal of RP, and I do incorporate a lot of RL elements into my RP because I am a weirdness magnet, but it's difficult. I've made ex-cops turned runners who weren't corrupt so much as they eventually crossed the line in their work so much it became pragmatic. It's just... hard.

A while back, I used a pair of corrupt cops as enemy/adversary NPCs for runners who were a "Heist"-style bunch of mundane burglars and stick-up kids. I figured that the anti-Starsky and Hutch duo would make good opposition because it was natural for the Star to be tracking the runners, and, by making the officers on the case worse than Harvey Kietel in "Bad Lieutenant," it would make for a longer pursuit with more complicated outcomes [i.e., the cops could squeeze the runners for a payoff instead of killing/arresting them]. Plus, the runners could feel more justified in detesting the pigs.

The point is that they had a ton of criminal knowledge skills, but pathetic policing skills. I wish I'd thought of "excuses to search a car" for those guys because it really captures the character I wanted to give them. It's like giving a sleazy mob lawyer law specializations in "loopholes"; "technicalities"; or "misfiled paperwork."

Nah. That just requires a Criminal Procedures know skill of 6+ not three separate skills.

I meant one of the three. But I'm not talking about designing the most efficient mob lawyer, I'm talking about picking skills that illustrate his character. He might be the worst lawyer in the world, but if an arresting officer failed to cross one "t" in his report, he'll be the one to find it. That's a more telling detail than plain "Criminal Procedure: 6".